Gardy catches the clue train?

The Twins made a series of controversial moves this off-season, all of which involved their starting rotation.
While Boof Bonser, Matt Garza, and possibly Scott Baker, Glen Perkins and Kevin Slowey all seemed like solid candidates to fill out the rotation, which lost Brad Radke to retirement and Francisco Liriano to injury, it was understandable that the Twins would want to bring in a veteran or two, so that the Twins weren't literally sending out 4 rookies to try to win a pennant.

Before that happened, though, the Twins picked up a $4 million option on RH Carlos Silva, whose three seasons in the Twins rotation had gone good, great and terrible.

Considering the Royals gave Gil Meche, a pitcher with lesser career credentials than Silva, a 5 year, $55 million deal, it sort of made sense.

Then came the additions of Sidney Ponson ($1 million) and Ramon Ortiz ($3 million).
Silva, Ponson and Ortiz were all coming off terrible, and I mean terrible, 2006 seasons, and now Ron Gardenhire was guaranteeing them all a spot in the rotation, leaving only one opening for the crew of youngsters (never mind the fact that if anyone deserved to be guaranteed a spot it was Bonser, who pitched like a No. 2 for the last two month).
And while Boof has locked up that lost spot, the talk all spring has been that he would be No. 5.
This would be colossally stupid, since the 5th starter gets skipped a few times, and Boof is clearly the Twins 2nd best starter.

It seemed the Twins were making the exact same mistake they did last year, when they handed jobs to shitty veterans (Juan Castro and Tony Batista), and nearly played themselves out of contention.

However, it's starting to look like the Twins (read: Gardy) learned their lesson last year after all.
Silva gave up 9 runs in 3.1 innings in his last start. He now has an 11.02 ERA this spring.
It's clear he's still the pitcher he was last year (if not worse), not the pitcher that finished 5th in the AL in ERA in 2005.
Finally, after that start, Gardy admitted that Silva cannot enter the season in the rotation if he's pitching this poorly.
The 5th spot is now down to Silva and Garza. With a 3 inning, 1 run relief effort Sunday, Garza has now pitched 12 innings this spring and allowed two runs.
While I know the Twins would love to get Garza some more minor league experience (he's pitched only a handful of games above A-ball), it appears he might've finally overtaken Silva for the last spot.
And in another shocking moment of intelligence from Gardy, he said that he expects Bonser to in fact, be the No. 2 starter.
("Looks to me like he's our second best starter," Gardy said. To which the entire Twins fan-base answered: "No shit!")

Not only is this good because Garza's flat out better than Silva, it's good because it shows the team that Gardy is perhaps finally going to inject some accountability into the process of winning jobs.
In the past, we've seen many veteran players, like Castro, Batista, Lew Ford, Rondell White, Shannon Stewart, Doug Mientkiewicz, Rick Reed and now Silva just to name a few, who Gardy has babied simply because they were veterans.
Maybe that will finally stop.

Ortiz and Ponson are still worth worrying over (Ortiz entered today's start with a 0.75 ERA, and was hammered for 6 runs on 9 hits in 4 innings, Ponson's spring ERA is 6.30), but at the very least, we can be reasonably sure that their will be a much quicker hook for these guys than there was for Castro and Batista last year.
With Perkins, Slowey and Baker (and perhaps Garza) in Triple-A, the Twins can't afford to let these guys stink it up.

The big question now is, what happens to Silva?
It sounds like the Twins are going to take 12 pitchers North, something they haven't done in several years (and that, scarily, is as much because of the team's lack of decent bench options as it is the pitching woes).
They would've loved to make either JD Durbin or lefty specialist Mike Venafro that 12th guy. But now perhaps Silva is the 12th guy, with Garza as the 5th starter. This wouldn't be bad, because it would give Silva some 'extended spring training' by being able to try and work through his problems on the side and in mop-up duty.

But if Durbin doesn't make the team he's gone, and Venafro would likely catch on somewhere else as well. Wouldn't seem worth losing them if Silva never pans out.
There's also the chance Silva gets sent to the minors, I don't believe he has the required service-time to refuse an assignment (a la Kyle Lohse last year).
The problem with that is Silva is somewhat of a head-case, and I don't see him taking that well at all (Silva insists he's fine and that his spring ERA is nothing to worry about, incidentally).

Personally, I have no idea how this is going to shake out. I'm just encouraged that Gardy finally seems willing to make decisions based on effectiveness, not seniority.